Christmas Eve Santa Tracker

Here's a flashback from last year and here's the kids countdown for 2008. Read More......

Housing dives even deeper

Sam Zell is living in a fantasy world if he thinks this market will bounce back in the spring. Spring of 2011, maybe, but not a chance in spring of 2009. His strange predictions make sense only in the world of never-never land that is also known as right wing economics. Unfortunately, this is the same kind that we're going to see more of in the next four years since Obama hasn't figured out yet that his team is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Sales of new and existing homes plummeted in November, as buyers stayed out of the market amid the growing financial crisis and deepening recession, according to figures releases Tuesday.

Sales of existing homes fell 8.6 percent, far more than expected, to an annual rate of 4.49 million in November, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.91 million in October. The median sales price fell 13.2 percent — the largest amount on record — to $181,300, from $208,000 a year ago.

That was the lowest price since February 2004 and the biggest year-over-year drop on records going back to 1968. The drop in home prices was probably the largest since the Great Depression, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun told reporters.

Meanwhile sales of newly built single-family homes slowed to the weakest levels since 1991, according to the Commerce Department.

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Thin end of the wedge

And hopefully there's more to come. This investor - who used to work for the SEC as an enforcement attorney - is forcing the SEC to defend its shoddy work and be held accountable. It's only a matter of time before a flood of lawsuits hit those who guided investors to Madoff as well as anyone who reviewed and confirmed the books. The big accounting firms clearly have learned nothing from the Tyco/Enron scandals and are seemingly indifferent to their own poor reputation in the market. How long can they continue to charge so much and deliver such questionable results?

An investor who lost nearly $2 million investing with Bernard Madoff has filed a claim against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging the agency was negligent in failing to detect an alleged decades-long fraud, the Wall Street Journal said.

Phyllis Molchatsky, a 61-year-old retiree from Valley Cottage, New York, is seeking $1.7 million in damages from the agency, the paper said.

The claim is believed to be the first attempt by an investor to recover lost money from regulators, according to the paper.

The SEC's "statutory purpose is to protect the public interest," Howard Elisofon, the lawyer representing Molchatsky, told the paper.

"We feel they fell down on the job in this instance," Elisofon, who is also a former SEC enforcement attorney, told the paper.

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Majority of Americans think Madoff scandal is common

What used to be a game for the wealthy is now the foundation for the future of the country. There's very little confidence in Wall Street or the entire system so business as usual is not going to cut it. The problem is much larger though because not only is there a crisis in confidence for Wall Street investments, but the system in general including ratings agencies, accounting firms who are supposed to be reviewing the books, Wall Street analysts, as well as regulators. Looking at these numbers leaves me shocked at the mainstream conservative thinking of the incoming Obama team.

Most Americans believe that investment fraud like the recently revealed Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff happens regularly on Wall Street, according to a recent survey.

In a CNN/Opinion Research poll, 74% of those surveyed said they think Madoff's behavior is common among financial advisors and institutions. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Madoff operated a $50 billion Ponzi scheme - the largest in history - that cost some of the world's largest financial firms, charitable foundations and individual investors hundreds of millions of dollars each.

Of the more than 1,000 American surveyed from Dec. 19-21, 59% said the government regulates the stock market and financial institutions too loosely. Just 22% said government regulation is too tight, while 18% said the government's current market oversight is exactly right.

Americans are more supportive of additional market regulation than they were just a few months ago. In an earlier poll conducted in September, only 50% of respondents said there was too little government oversight, while 26% said the government was regulating the markets too much.

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Al Franken still ahead by 48 votes

And apparently the next meeting election Canvassing Board in Minnesota isn't taking place until January 5. It's amazing that in a statewide race we're talking about less than 50 votes separating the two Senate candidate. As we've always said, every vote quite literally counts. Read More......

Madoff collapse triggers suicide

I can only wonder if this will be the last. The loss of $50 billion is a shocking figure and Access International Advisors apparently lost $1.4 billion. It still amazes me that on Wall Street there has been so few cases like this considering the massive hemorrhaging of billions. No real firings without golden parachutes or significant pain other than maybe 50% bonus cuts which is laughably high compared to the misery in the rest of the country. Heck, we haven't even seen any firings at the SEC or Treasury who were supposed to be keeping an eye on the system. Maybe it will be a bit better under Obama but I'm losing hope on any big change or acceptance of responsibility for bad decisions there as well.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a founder of the hedge fund Access International Advisors, was found dead early Tuesday in his office in Manhattan, the French business daily La Tribune reported on its Web site, after losing as much as $1.4 billion that had been invested with Bernard L. Madoff, the money manager accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Mr. de la Villehuchet, 65, committed suicide, La Tribune said, citing a someone close to Mr. de la Villehuchet.

Mr. de la Villehuchet had been trying to recover the money that Access International raised in Europe and invested through Mr. Madoff’s business, La Tribune reported.

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You have Rick Warren officially spooked

I thought it was all a tad too convenient that Rick Warren was talking the press about the controversy over his doing the invocation at Obama's inaugural, and that Warren was doing videos and emailings to supporters trying to present "his side" of the argument (his side is that we're hateful, evil, Christ-ophobes), and then scrubbing his church Web site to remove language that talked about banning gays from membership (though the church's apparent PR firm (what church has a PR firm?) just emailed me to say they have no rescinded their language on homosexuality, but rather they've "repurposed" it (repurposed?) in a series of videos. Whatever. The fact that Rick Warren's PR flak is now emailing me speaks volumes to what we have already accomplished.

Now we find out that Rick "Deny me three times" Warren is visiting an HIV/AIDS related thrift store in West Hollywood (the gay mecca of the west coast) and taking photos with known homos. Don't think for a minute that Warren isn't visiting the thrift store to prove that he loves American "victims" of AIDS just lke he likes those Africans (we "coincidentally" wrote about this distinction yesterday).

Folks - you, we, have Rick Warren running in circles in order to clear his "good" name. (And I have a hard time believing that he's doing this without a little coaching from some folks who might just have invited him to speak somewhere on January 20th.) But the problem is that Warren can only run so far from his anti-gay rhetoric because it's what he believes. It's what his followers believe. These people hate us. They consider us sub-human. As Rick Warren himself said, our relationships are no better than pedophilia, than incest. There are only so many amends Rick Warren can make before he, once again, reveals his true self, as he did this morning when he called us hateful, evil, Christ-ophobes.

So I'm not surprised that Warren isn't able to speak publicly without stepping his foot deeper in it. Having said that, it is interesting, and telling, that the guy so concerned about pedophilia and incest is now hell-bent on being the gays best friend. That suggests that Mr. Warren, and Mr. Obama, know they have a problem. They're worried. They're feeling vulnerable. And that, in and of itself, considering that we're dealing with the incoming president and the putative leader of millions of religious right evangelicals, is quite an accomplishment that you should all be proud of.

It also means, don't let up. They're running scared. Read More......

Rick Warren and Rev. Wright

Richard Cohen's piece in today's Washington Post is brilliant. It's also troubling for the Obama people, as Cohen draws a direct line from the Rick Warren fiasco to the Rev. Wright imbroglio.

It's one thing for Obama to be able to write off a "little" gay controversy. You know those gays. But it's quite another matter when that little gay controversy starts leading commentators to bring up Rev. Wright, and suggest that, in view of Obama's handling of Rick Warren, perhaps Wright was more than just an anomaly. I always thought the Rev. Wright issue was bs. But it was potentially very damaging for Obama. It's not good when anything resurrects, and validates, a scandal that we thought was water under the bridge.

Cohen's column also illustrates another point. This isn't just about gays and lesbians. It's about their family members, who are also offended by someone comparing their brother, their sister, their child, to a pedophile.

"I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage," Warren told Beliefnet.com's Steve Waldman. "I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage."

Waldman asked, "Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?"

"Oh, I do," said Warren.

There you have the thinking of the man Obama has chosen above all other religious figures to represent him in this most solemn moment. He likens my sister's relationship -- three children, five grandchildren, so loving as to be envied and so conventional as to be boring -- to incest or polygamy....

I can understand Obama's desire to embrace constituencies that have rejected him. Evangelicals are in that category and Warren is an important evangelical leader with whom, Obama said, "we're not going to agree on every single issue." He went on to say, "We can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans." Sounds nice.

But what we do not "hold in common" is the dehumanization of homosexuals. What we do not hold in common is the belief that gays are perverts who have chosen their sexual orientation on some sort of whim. What we do not hold in common is the exaltation of ignorance that has led and will lead to discrimination and violence.

Finally, what we do not hold in common is the categorization of a civil rights issue -- the rights of gays to be treated equally -- as some sort of cranky cultural difference. For that we need moral leadership, which, on this occasion, Obama has failed to provide. For some people, that's nothing to celebrate.

The party's off.

That last full paragraph is, I think, the crux of the matter, and the reason the Rick Warren issue has touched off such a firestorm in the gay community. Obama is essentially asking us to acknowledge that our humanity is negotiable. That our view of ourselves as full members of American society, as equal members of the human race, is somehow "just our opinion," no more and no less valid than those who compare us to pedophiles. He wants us to acknowledge that there are two sides to every issue, even our very existence. He wants us to tolerate intolerance, as he is about to do from the highest office in the land. Read More......

Shoplifting on the increase as economy fails

The Republican economy continues to take it's toll on America. We can't only think about the wealthiest Americans and their business interests and will have to do much more to help everyone as the economy gets worse.

“I was desperate, I guess,” said Mr. Johnson, 25, who said he had never been arrested before. As the economy has weakened, shoplifting has increased, and retail security experts say the problem has grown worse this holiday season. Shoplifters are taking everything from compact discs and baby formula to gift cards and designer clothing.

Police departments across the country say that shoplifting arrests are 10 percent to 20 percent higher this year than last. The problem is probably even greater than arrest records indicate since shoplifters are often banned from stores rather than arrested.

Much of the increase has come from first-time offenders like Mr. Johnson making rash decisions in a pinch, the authorities say. But the ease with which stolen goods can be sold on the Internet has meant a bigger role for organized crime rings, which also engage in receipt fraud, fake price tagging and gift card schemes, the police and security experts say.

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Shouldn't we have expected more from Obama's cabinet?

Without minimizing the enormous change at the top, Obama's cabinet is little more than business as usual for Washington. Whether it's the same free market types who led us into this recession or the same familiar faces everyone knows, the new team looks similar to the old team. In Spain, Jose Luis Zapatero updated his cabinet with a female majority and even the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy of France divided cabinet positions equally between men and women.

In the US women voters have been critical to the success of Democrats and yet look at the numbers. It's a valid criticism to expect more from someone who campaigned on the theme of change. There appears to be an overcompensation for the ground breaking nature of his own candidacy and a fear of living up to expectations of change in policy. In this climate and after this hard fought win, the new look that's really the old look becomes less inspiring by the day. We've been governed by fear for the last eight years and now it appears as though Obama is going to govern based on his own fears of leadership and clear direction.

It might be diverse, but not everyone is happy. Some women's groups are disappointed. Among Obama's strongest backers during the election, they now say they don't have enough seats at the table.

That's because of Obama's 20 announced Cabinet-level posts, five went to women: Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary, Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary, Susan Rice as United Nations ambassador and Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency chief.

"When you are looking at a Cabinet and you have such a small number of women in the room when the big decisions are being made, there need to be a lot more women's voices in this administration," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women.

Bill Clinton and President Bush each had a comparable number of women in their first Cabinets, but women's groups say they hoped they'd make progress.

Amy Siskind, co-founder of the nonpartisan group New Agenda, accuses Obama of taking "shocking steps backward" and said "this constituency does not matter to the president-elect."

Obama has said he's picking people for their skills and not pandering to special interests.

"In this case, we have seen Obama emphasize credentials," said Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post. "I think they obviously knew they would get a lot of bang for their buck, so to speak, in appointing Clinton, but at the end of the day, the numbers really aren't any more impressive than any previous president."

Ah hah, the old "picking people for their skills and not pandering to special interest" bullshit. Sorry, but that's total BS and exactly what the right throws out, but of course, this cabinet looks pretty conservative, so if the shoe fits... Read More......

Q3 GDP down, consumer spending lowest since 1980

No surprises, but hardly good data. Reuters:

The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.5 percent annual pace in the third quarter as expected after consumers and businesses cut spending and the country's recession gathered steam, government data showed on Tuesday.

The U.S. economy entered a recession last December which deepened after the failure of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in September, which froze credit and sent households and firms into a defensive crouch.

"The past couple of quarters have been really weak and if anything, I'm afraid it may indicate a really bad fourth quarter," said Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist at Swiss Re in New York.

The Commerce Department, in its final revision, said the decline in gross domestic product in the third quarter versus the previous three months was the steepest since the third quarter of 2001, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted the report would show GDP declined by an unrevised 0.5 percent in the third quarter after growing at a 2.8 percent pace in the previous three months, when tax rebates temporarily helped fuel demand.

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Lose your job, lose your health insurance, kind of screwed

Jesus.

John Mathson had been paying about $550 a month to continue his health insurance coverage after the 63-year-old Eureka man got laid off in October after 39 years at the Evergreen Pulp mill.

For Mathson, who is undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had knee surgery in September, the news got worse last week. The mill, which shut down, informed him it could no longer afford to offer health or welfare programs to any employees or retirees as of Jan. 1.

Oh, and guess what. Now allergies are a pre-existing condition.

At 31, Jessica Palmer is young enough that she would seem to be a prime candidate for an individual health policy that's cheaper than her former employer's $400 monthly COBRA payment.

But the Emeryville resident, who was laid off Oct. 30 from her position as marketing coordinator for online art retailer Art.com Inc., has allergies. Her allergies, which are not life threatening but are controlled by injections and medications, mean Palmer will pay more or be rejected entirely.

Yes, God forbid a 31 year old with allergies try to get health insurance. The gall of some people thinking they deserve to live past 30. Read More......

We don't like Third Way either

Great way to make a mountain out of a molehill.

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In new video, Rick Warren accuses gays of "hateful attacks," "hate speech," "Christ-ophobia," and of being "evil"

Merry Christmas from Rick Warren! You're all hateful, evil, and not even Christian!

Barack Obama's good buddy Rick Warren recorded a video yesterday, talking about the outcry over his being chosen to given the invocation at Obama's swearing in. And it's a doozie. Warren's big mouth, and apparent ego, is pretty much guaranteeing that this controversy will continue all the way up until the inauguration and beyond.

In the new video, Warren accuses gays of "hate speech," of launching "hateful attacks" against him, and he then says that gay and lesbian Americans have "Christ-ophobia," a clear effort to mock the term "homophobia." He goes on to explain that gays are "afraid of any Christian," suggesting that gay and lesbian Americans - gay and lesbian Obama voters - are not Christians. He then goes on to call gays criticizing him "evil." All this from a man who compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, and who explicitly bans "unrepentant gays" from his church membership.

(He also adds that bloggers are "rude" and "need to get a life." I don't really care about that part, it's just more evidence that we're getting under Warren's skin, and that he's not quite ready for prime time.)

Now that Obama has tied his horse to Rick Warren, and Warren is now speaking out and accusing gay and lesbian Obama supporters of being hateful, evil, of not being Christians, and of fearing all Christians and apparently Christ himself - mind you, we're told by Obama's pastor friend that we're not really Christian only three days before Christmas - it's time for Barack Obama to answer some questions about the very vocal Mr. Warren.

Does Obama agree with Rick Warren that gay and lesbian Americans have been "evil" and "hateful" in this affair?

Does Obama agree that gay Americans are not Christians?

Does Obama agree that gays have "Christ-ophobia"?

Keep fanning those flames, Mr. Warren. Read More......

Saudi girl, eight, married off to 58-year-old is denied divorce

These are our allies.

An eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a 58-year-old man has been told she cannot divorce her husband until she reaches puberty.... Relatives said the marriage had not been consummated...

That's reassuring. Read More......

Tuesday morning open thread

Joe is on the west coast, I'm in Chicagoland freezing my butt off, and Petey the Wodnerdog is in Maine with his human grandparents. Here in Chicago, we did our annual Christmas cookie making last night.



Ever since I was kid, we've made cookies at Christmas, then decorated them with colored sugar, chocolate ants (as we call them), and chocolate chips. Then we hang them on the Christmas tree. Mom says she got the recipe, and tradition, from a woman down the street in our old neighborhood. We use these great aluminum cookie cutters my mom has had since the 50s or early 60s. I ended up finding more of them on eBay and got a set for all of my siblings, so now we'll all have the tradition to pass on.




I've never heard of anyone else hanging cookies on the the tree, so I'm curious where this came from (just Googled it and apparently others hang cookies as well, but no word on where the tradition came from). Anyway, somehow I've become the keeper of the tradition, so it's now tradition that Uncle John gets the kids together to make the Christmas cookies. It's quite an enormous mess, but lots of fun (my nephews are in their 20s and still help).

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I'm with Elijah Cummings on this

He's a no nonsense person whereas AIG is nothing but nonsense. I've heard the arguments in favor of retention bonuses or whatever they want to call them and it's a common story that's been floated for years. If the superstars who led AIG into the abyss are convinced of their self worth and want to try the market, go for it. It's possible, maybe even likely, that AIG will lose some business as employees try those greener pastures but that's a normal fact of business on any given day. Let's not forget that for every person leaving (and there are only so many hot jobs out there today) there are perhaps a dozen queuing up to get in. With Wall Street shedding jobs there is no shortage of job seekers in this employers market.

I've listened Cummings on a number of occasions discuss the AIG situation and never once has he sounded aggressive or unreasonable. AIG is completely out of order here and playing games with the bailout money that was necessary to save AIG and others from total ruin. It's time AIG steps up and acts responsibly with taxpayer money. They're all making much more than most Americans, bonus or no bonus, so quit the games or give back the cash and go under.

American International Group Chief Executive Edward Liddy insists his troubled company is not trying to hide anything from Congress, as Rep. Elijah Cummings has charged.

"We had a meeting set up last Thursday with the Congressman," Liddy told CNBC in an interview. "I got a letter on Tuesday asking for more information. We simply couldn't provide the information in time for a meeting on Thursday."

Congressman Cummings' office disputed Liddy's account of the timing of the request, saying letters were sent to AIG on December 5 and December 9 requesting the information. A letter concerning the matter was sent last week to the chairman of the Oversight Committee, but was not addressed to Liddy or AIG.

When the meeting was postponed, Cummings accused the company of "stonewalling" and denounced AIG and others for "stall tactics."

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The eco font

Leave it to the Dutch to come up with such a practical yet creative solution. If I ever get around to buying a printer I will definitely give this a try.

The Ecofont saves on printing ink by … well, using less of it. Letters in the freely downloadable typeface contain multiple small circular holes, meaning that each letter requires less ink to be printed. As the designers put it: "After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well." Quite.

Though rather striking, the typeface is wholly readable (no pun intended) and is, apparently, most effective at nine or 10 point. It's also sans serif, because, of course, the little flourishes on serif fonts will use up more ink when being printed.

Spranq claims that the Ecofont will reduce ink use by up to 20% - not bad for something that was developed over "lots of late hours (and coffee)".

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the font is the question it raises: why hasn't anybody thought of this before? It appears to be one of those blindingly obvious innovations that simply slipped under the radar all this time.

As it's now widely accepted that printing should be minimised, there seems little reason as to why most homes and workplaces couldn't switch some or all of their printing to the new typeface, thus saving themselves some cash and doing the environment a small favour.

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1 million more job losses in 2009?

If we're lucky. Looking at the right wing economic team coming in it's hard to see how they're going to do an about face on everything they've stood for and change paths. Obama hired this team so obviously this is what he believes as well. Heaven help us all.

The labor market faces persistent weakness in 2009, with more than 1 million jobs cuts expected due to weak spending among consumers and businesses, according to a Monday report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

The incoming administration is working on a massive economic stimulus package to save or create millions of jobs. But it will take time for the stimulus measure to work, said John Challenger, chief executive of the outplacement firm.

"Even if the measures work, it could take several more months for consumers and corporate America to regain confidence and begin spending again," he said.

The firm expects that healthy employment growth, associated with an expanding economy, may not start until 2013. Since the recession began in December 2007, almost 2 million jobs have been lost, according to the government.

If nothing else, this recession will force people to step back and reevaluate what "healthy" really means. Unrealistic quarterly growth expectations - led by Wall Street - have also been contributing factors in this decline and the 3 month thinking needs to be modernized. Read More......

An incredible series of photos from the Greek riots

A friend sent me this link to some of the best photos from the recent riots in Greece. Some of them are rather amazing. Have a look. Read More......